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Failure to distinguish between Israel’s deficiencies, and its existence, perpetuates and encourages a climate of hatred and condemnation against Israel per se, and one that easily tips into global anti-Semitism. It is fed by the West’s most powerful and eloquent spokesmen, including President Barak Hussein Obama.
What makes Obama’s administration different from his predecessors is not its anti-settlement policy – the State Dept has been consistently anti-Israel for 70 years – but the context — a new configuration of forces aligned against Israel. The sparks of his words ignite vast fires of anti-Israel violence.
Previous American administrations were more or less sympathetic to Israel and its difficult position, and were usually balanced. For example, Sec of State Condoleezza Rice’s hostility to Israel was balanced by President George W Bush and VP Dick Cheney’s generally positive attitude.
Obama’s strong-arm tactics against Israel and “outreach” (appeasement) to the Muslim world, his indifference and/or enmity towards Israel, surrounded by advisors eager to sacrifice Israel’s security to their political interests, and a disturbing naivete, from healthcare and economics to nuclear proliferation and military strategy, represent a new threat to Israel’s quest for legitimacy and acceptance.
Delegitimizing Israel seems to be a barely hidden agenda, not with an organized plan, but indirectly, making Jewish building in Jerusalem THE issue, castigating Israeli settlements as “illegal and unacceptable” – rather than constant Palestinian incitement and terrorism.
Coupled with efforts to delegitimize Israel around the world, Obama’s words are powerful indictments against Israel, which render Israel a pariah, an outcast among the nations, deserving of whatever punishment its enemies have in store.
No other American president has treated Israel with such animosity, in such a hostile environment, with so many unpredictable dangers, and amidst world-wide anathema for the Jewish state.
Not traditional anti-Semitism, this new expression of hatred and bigotry has become the semi-official language of the United Nations, many EU politicians and most Muslim and Arab leaders. Denial of Jewish history and Jewish historical claims in Eretz Yisrael (the Land of Israel), Holocaust-denial, and myriad fabrications and myths about Palestinianism are viral; they cannot be defeated unless confronted for what they are — poisons of the mind and the soul.
The author is an historian, writer and journalist living in Jerusalem moshedan@netvision.net.il.
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